Page 109 - A Woman Is No Man

Deya

Winter 2008

One step onto Fourteenth Street, and Deya was shaking. The city was loud

—screeching—like all the noise in the world had been let out at once.
Yellow cabs slammed on brakes, cars honked, and people swerved by like
hundreds of Ping-Pong balls flying jaggedly across a room. It was one thing
to look at the city from the back seat of her grandfather’s car, another thing
entirely to stand dead in the middle of it, to smell every whiff of its garbage
and grease. It felt as if someone had let her loose in a giant maze, only she
was stuck between thousands of people who knew exactly where to go,

shoving past her to get there.
She read the address once, and then again. She had no idea where to go.
She could feel the sweat building along the edge of her hijab. What had
made her come to Manhattan on her own? It was a stupid idea, and now she
was lost. What if she couldn’t get back to the bus stop in time? What if her
grandparents found out what she had done—that she had skipped school

and ridden the subway? That she was in the city? The thought of Khaled’s
open palm against her face made her knees shake.
A man paused beside her, head bowed, typing into his cell phone.
Should she ask him for directions? She looked around for a woman, but
they all flew past her. She forced herself to approach him.
“Excuse me, sir,” she said, wiping sweat from her hijab.
He didn’t look up.

She cleared her throat, said it louder. “Excuse me . . .”
He met her eyes. She felt a conscious effort on his part not to let his
eyes wander around her head. “Yes?”
She handed him the card. “Do you know where I can find this
bookstore?”

The man read the card and handed it back to her. “I’m not sure,” he
said. “But eight hundred Broadway should be that way.” He pointed to a
street in the distance, and she marked the spot where his fingers landed.